Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle. This form of heart disease is often distinctive, both in general symptoms and in patterns of blood flow, to allow a diagnosis to be made. Increasing recognition of this disease, along with improved diagnostic techniques, has shown that cardiomyopathy is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In some areas of the world it may account for as many as 30 percent of all deaths due to heart disease.
Cardiomyopathy can result from a variety of structural or functional abnormalities of the ventricular myocardium. A large number of cardiomyopathies are apparently not related to an infectious process and are not well understood. Some are congenital and may cause enlargement of the heart. Metabolic diseases associated with endocrine disorders may also cause cardiomyopathies. Infections, such as acute rheumatic fever and several viral infections, may cause a number of types of myocarditis. Myocarditis may also occur as a manifestation of a generalized hypersensitivity reaction, allergic or immunologic. The heart may also be affected by any of a considerable number of collagen diseases. Collagen is the principal connective tissue protein, and collagen diseases are diseases of the connective tissues. They include diseases primarily of the joints, skin, and systemic disease.
There are three clinical classifications of cardiomyopathy; hypertrophic, restrictive, and dilated congestive. Dilated congestive cardiomyopathy is a disorder of myocardial function where ventricular dilation occurs, often following virus infection. Restrictive cardiomyopathy occurs as a consequence of the ventricular walls becoming rigid so that the chambers are unable to fill adequately. This is usually idiopathic. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is characterized by ventricular hypertrophy and may be congenital or acquired. The prognosis for all three types of disease is guarded at best and often poor. Treatment of cardiomyopathy involves restricted activity, stress avoidance, treatment with beta-blockers, prophylactic antibiotic therapy, use of anti-coagulants, calcium channel blockers, surgery, and cardiac transplantation.
Of interest to the present application are the disclosure of co-owned published PCT international applications PCT/US91/01898 published Nov. 14, 1991, PCT/US95/06689 published Nov. 30, 1995, and PCT/US97/14005 filed Aug. 8, 1997 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,753,624 issued May 19, 1998 the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference. These references relate in part to methods for alleviating symptoms associated with amyloid plaque formation and/or formation of arterial plaques comprising the step of administering to a patient an effective amount of amyloid protein.
Recent literature reports have focused on the use of somatotropin, a growth hormone, for the treatment of cardiomyopathy. See: "A Preliminary Study of Growth Hormone in the Treatment of Dilated Cardiomyopathy, "N.E. J. of Medicine, 334(13), pp. 811-814 (1996). However, cautionary responses to such reports speak to the possibility, or even likelihood, of inducing cancer, arrhythmias, and other problems with growth hormone therapy using the concentrations now being evaluated by those authors. Accordingly, there remains a desire in the art for effective cardiomyopathy therapies that allow reduction in the amount of growth hormone administered and do not suffer from the limitations of the prior methods.